


waiting for the rain to come by

by patrokla



Category: Flowers (TV)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hospitals, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the hospital room, Maurice holds Amy’s hand and tries not to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting for the rain to come by

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not all that sure about this, as I've just written this, but I've been trying to write a fic about this show for ages and I'm a bit glad I just managed to get one done.
> 
> Title from Seed Song by the Mountain Goats.

 

> 
>     "And I know you're waiting for the ironic ending
>     And I know you're waiting for the punchline
>     And I know you're waiting for the rain to come by
>     So am I"  
>     > 
>     
>     'Seed Song' - the Mountain Goats

 

Amy wakes up half a dozen times before she really wakes up, for good. Maurice quickly grows used to the beeping of the hospital monitors, broken only by Amy’s incoherent mumbling when she briefly opens her eyes before settling deeper into the hospital bed.  
  
As the cycle repeats, Maurice finds himself with time to think.  
  
He’s never been overly fond of having time to think, and even less so, recently. The uninterrupted silence of the hospital room reminds him of the early mornings when he would sit at the kitchen table with a cooling mug of tea and ponder. Ponder matters like - would he ever feel better? Would he ever feel brave enough to tell anyone he wanted to feel better? Did he even _want_ to feel better?  
  
And gradually, those questions had turned to simpler ones with more quantifiable answers. For example, which tree in the garden has the sturdiest branches? And where did Mum put that rope, all those decades ago?  
  
No, the silence has never treated Maurice particularly well. It’s snuck up on him in the most unlikely of situations, too. Eating dinner with his family. Looking over Shun’s latest illustrations. Listening to Deborah teach the neighbours’ children to sight-read.  
  
Ostensibly, there had been noise in those moments. Ostensibly, he had not been alone.  
  
But somehow, somehow the silence was there too, and he could not be rid of it.  
  
His family is not a quiet one by nature or profession. Deborah has always brought sound into his life, with her voice and trumpet. Amy’s musical creations have filled the home for as long as he can remember, and Donald’s material creations, as determined as the boy himself to be distinctive and distinguishable among the rest, well those machines have been the cause of their fair share of cacophony and second-degree burns.  
  
Even Shun, shut away from the rest of them as he is, hums as he sketches and colours, and murmurs to himself as he brings life to Maurice’s words.  
  
No, Maurice does not live in a quiet household. But quiet and silence separated themselves in his mind long ago, and all the noise in the world hasn’t kept the silence at bay.  
  
(He’d thought, when he was young and first seeing Deborah, that perhaps it might. Perhaps she could drive the silence away with her smiles and laughter and sheet music scattered all over her flat. Perhaps, he’d thought then. Please.)  
  
In the hospital room, Maurice holds Amy’s non-bandaged hand and tries not to think.  
  
As usual, his mind ignores his attempts and sets off at a whirlwind pace, straight into its usual haunts and swamps. Careless, careless, neglectful father. She could have _died_ , and what then? And so soon after Mum’s death, which, he mustn’t forget, had been directly caused by him? Can’t keep it together, can’t swallow past the lump of misery in his throat, can’t breathe past the stickily seductive blankness coating his lungs. What _can_ he do? He’s useless, a useless lump and Deborah knows now, can put a name to all her dissatisfaction. She’ll leave, and it’s best, it is, would be best if they all did, although he knows that Shun probably won’t, and Donald, for all his talk, won’t for a long while, and Amy - well, Amy _can’t_ now, can she? So he’ll have to stay, for her, but already he can see the possibility of having to continue to survive with this constant, oppressive misery for yet another month, another year, another ten years, and - and he’s just so tired. So tired…  
  
It’s a well-worn path he’s on, every pothole and boulder familiar, and Maurice can’t seem to keep himself from walking it over and over. It’s a path that goes nowhere, and yet he can’t really bring himself to mind.  
  
And then Amy’s fingers twitch against his, and he looks up to see her looking at him solemnly. It’s the same look she’s been giving him since childhood, since she realized her dad wasn’t a very happy man. It’s a look that says ‘I know you said you’re alright, but I’m worried about you.’ It says, ‘I care.’ It says, ‘I don’t know how to help, and I’m waiting for you to give me a clue.'  
  
He swallows roughly, looking around for the cup of half-melted ice chips he’d brought in the first time she’d woken up, but by the time he finds it (on the table by the bed), she’s already fallen back asleep.  
  
Her look. He’s seen it a thousand times, but never from a head laying on a hospital bed. Never in a room with fluorescent lighting that smells of cleaning supplies and old coffee.  
  
He wonders if - if the branch had snapped a little bit later, would she have given him that look when he woke up in the hospital? Would she have gotten a chance to?  
  
For once, the silence makes what comes next a little easier.  
  
“Amy,” he says quietly.  
  
She doesn’t stir, which is just as well.  
  
“Amy, I’m going to get help.”  
  
She breathes in and out, just slightly too slow for comfort.  
  
“I swear,” he says, and he means it, truly. His family’s spent too much time in hospitals, these last few weeks.  
  
This time, when the bad thoughts loom again, he can almost push them away.


End file.
